


Things that do and don't matter.

by BID



Series: Open Ended OS [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Azkaban, Gen, HP: EWE, Harry is Lord Black, M/M, Single Parent Harry, Wandless Magic, can be read as Open End OS, harry has a pet snake, nothing canon was changed except EWE, praseltongue, prisoner Draco, ship if you squint, to Teddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 14:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4063510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BID/pseuds/BID
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"My son, dear, please you have to stop." Draco heard his mother from the cell opposite to his.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>Slowly he pulled his hand away from his bloody arm, not caring about the grit and dirt and dried blood under his fingernails, or the deep seated, dull pain of where the mark sat, now just a bleeding, unrecognisable scarred mess of black ink. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>"It doesn’t matter anymore." is all he answers. It's what he always answers, had for months now. Because it didn't. </em></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>After the war Draco finds himself imprisoned in Azkaban, and despite his mothers efforts of sending a letter to Harry Potter (reminding him of the life debt he owed her) nothing changed, nothing ever changed and nothing mattered.<br/>But then, getting someone out of the safest prison known to the wizarding world takes <em>time</em>, and when Potter finally does Draco isn't even sure if he ever so much as 'knew' this person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things that do and don't matter.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm sorting out my discontinued WIPs, and posting the ones I particularly like, in the hopes of being able to better focus on what I _really_ need to write.  
>  I like this one very much, so I might continue writing on it, but I make no promises considering that the last time I actually wrote on it was a good year ago.
> 
> Whether you're into the Drarry ship or just for friendship either works here.   
> Please enjoy it non the less and maybe think of it as a OS.
> 
> **End note contains my vision of what Harry is referring to with the newspapers, and a little vague background. It's a copy/paste of a comment answer i gave earlier, but if one person was confused as to what Harry did, I figured I might as well post it in a more visible place as well.**

"My son, dear, please you have to stop." Draco heard his mother from the cell opposite to his.  
Slowly he pulled his hand away from his bloody arm, not caring about the grit and dirt and dried blood under his fingernails, or the deep seated, dull pain of where the mark sat, now just a bleeding, unrecognisable scarred mess of black ink. 

"It doesn’t matter anymore." is all he answers. It's what he always answers, had for months now. Because it didn't. 

\- - -

Even with the dementors retuned to Azkaban, in the beginning Draco still had the energy to be angry, and when his mother managed to get a letter out _somehow_ he still had the energy for a flicker of hope. She didn't tell him what it said or for whom it was, until there still was no answer three months later and she exhaustedly, hopelessly confessed it had been to Harry Potter, to remind him of the life debt he owed her.  
She asked for him to get Draco out of prison.

Draco had laughed at that, almost hysterical with the idea of _Potter_ of all people trying to get him out of this place. 

_Potter_!

"He _hates_ me!" he almost yelled at his mother, still slightly hysterical with the idea of it, because he knew if Potter really wanted to get him out he probably _could_ , but of course his school nemesis and poster boy of the light would never even think of it.  
Why would he. 

Why _should_ he?

Narcissa was silent for a moment and Draco would have almost overheard her quiet voice.  
She seemed so small in this place.

"I don't believe so." she said, and Draco couldn't help himself but quiet down and listen to his mother who was one of the few things to keep him sane in this place. "I will not pretend to know him, but I am quite sure that he knows your position to the dark side was as much your choice as the position to the light was his."

\- - - 

It was nine months since his imprisonment in Azkaban, eight months since his mother sent the letter, five months since she lost hope and Draco occupied himself with rearranging everything he knew about Potter to see if it fit to what his mother said, three months since Draco accepted her words as truth.  
Now he mostly just sat in the corner of his cell, absently scratching at the god forsaken mark and trying to blend out the horrors he'd seen under _Voldemort’s_ (because _it was just a god forsaken name_ ) reign whenever a dementor passed their cells, only letting off his arm when his mother asked him to.

He silently wondered if she'd been marked.

He didn't ask.

\- - - 

Draco was shaken out of his sleep by a cacophony of yells and screeches, pleas and threats from the other end of their corridor, the wall of noise getting closer and closer, until a group of six aurors suddenly stopped in front of his cell.

"Draco Lucius Malfoy, step to the front of the cell."

For a moment he glanced at his mother's surprised face, but quickly complied even if he felt rather unstable on his feet.

"The occasion?" he raspily asked, but was ignored as they bound him in chains from neck to foot with a wave of their wand, and pulled an enchanted black cloth over his head effectively (and terrifyingly) turning him blind and deaf, as he was roughly lead away by pulling at his chains.

\- - - 

Draco's muscles burnt and he was out of breath by the time he was pressed into a chair, entirely unused to the exercise as the small cells barely allowed movement, when the sack was ripped of his head again. Leaving his senses to be flooded with voices, noises and light, overwhelming him after the never changing darkness of his cell.  
Just when he thought he was getting a hang of the overstimulation (and his breathing), there was the crack of a judges hammer and the sack over his head again.

He was pulled to his feet by the chains, almost strangling him with the collar around his neck as he was walked somewhere else.  
Draco was practically hyperventilating at the thought of going _back there_ now that he had a taste of clean air without the dementors constant depression gnawing at his sanity.

The chains, now the only thing holding him up, suddenly vanished and Draco felt himself falling, though instead of hitting the ground as expected he fell against something firm and warm, arms wrapped around him, a hand pressing on his shoulder as a haze of magic washed over his senses while they were attacked again by _too much_ once the sack was removed a last time. 

Entirely unable to deal with the overstimulation Draco unwittingly pressed his face into the person's neck, feeling the comfort and warmth for the first time in _so long_ , relieving his eyes from the painful brightness piercing his lids, smelling deep earthy tones before a hushed voice so close to his ear says: "Hold on Draco, we're going to apparate.", and he can barely hear it over the hundreds of other voices, yet alone make sense of it.

\- - - 

Draco woke up to hissing voices, lying rigid in his bed and utterly convinced that _he_ is in the hallway of his home again, until Draco realises that it's all wrong.  
Opening his eyes he could see (in the thankfully dim light from the shut curtains) that he is not in his room _or_ his cell. There's antique furniture, not unlike that at home, but a thick carpet and light drapes on the posts of the bed, the room was a bit smaller and arranged differently, more homely.  
The voices outside (and he's still convinced it’s praselmouth) stop and instead a deep, scratchy voice just groans in defeat, "For god's sake Korn, just let _me_ take him down the stairs."

Carefully Draco takes stock of himself as he sat up. His hair was smooth and unknotted, his skin and fingernails were clean, there was a bandage around his left lower arm and he wore plain black silk pyjamas.

Getting out of bed was easier than expected, and a glimpse past the curtains established that the sun was definitely too bright for him. But there was the _sun_ and windows, and a closet full of clothes that looked like they'd fit!  
As quick as possible he grabbed the first pair trousers and shirt he could get his hands on and changed into them, pulling on a pair of socks he found within the drawers and binding his too long hair together with a piece of leather sting he found on the desk.

Now he stood in front of the door, one hand hovering above the handle, listening to the voices which have moved what seemed to be 'downstairs', ridiculously afraid to find the door locked, and keenly aware of the fact that he was at _someone's_ mercy. 

Taking a deep breath he grabbed the handle and twisted it, the door miraculously swung open. Draco found himself on a landing with a dark green carpet (like the room he came from) covering the floor and two staircases, and there were white walls and two more black doors looking just like the one he was standing in.  
Slowly Draco followed the voices down the stairs, feeling his legs strain with the minimal exercise, keeping one hand clamped down on the black banister.

What he found, once at the foot of the stairs, was absolutely not what he'd expected. The floor was still dark green, thick carpet, the walls still white and the furniture black with gold accents. A massive fireplace on one side, an open kitchen on the other, and right in front of him, well, that was the unexpected part.

Two meters in front of him lay Harry Potter spread on the floor, looking utterly exhausted as a baby was sitting on his stomach, babbling and cheerfully pulling on a massive snake's tail who didn't seem to mind at all curled up next to Potter's head as it was, hissing into the man's ear, while a grim looking house-elf was cleaning up baby toys from the floor. 

Potter suddenly craned his neck and looked at Draco upside down, grinning sheepishly.  
"Hi Draco. I err, didn't expect you to be awake already. Hungry? Stupid question, of course you are. Kreatcher, get Mr. Malfoy something light please. Why don't you sit? You look a bit peachy. Draco? Draco! _Sit_ for god's sake before you keel over."

Numbly he complied, absently registering that the 'deep scratchy voice' from before was unbelievably Potter's, as he let himself drop onto the sofa and unable to tear his eyes away from the massive snake, almost as big as Nagini, arranging itself into a circle around the infant that was now sitting on the carpet and _still_ pulling on its tail. All while Potter was standing in front of him and offering a cup of tea he'd conjured with a wave of his hand, as if that was an entirely normal thing to leave a _baby_ (Potter has a baby?!) with a _snake_ (that even _looked like Nagini_ ) that could easily _eat_ it?!

Potter sighed and let himself drop next to Draco on the sofa. They weren’t touching but it still felt like Potter's aura or something was pressing against him, his magic maybe. If it was he'd never felt magic this palpable, not even _his_. Voldemort's. He really needs to get used to that stupid name.  
"Don't mind them." Potter said, "Korn is the best thing that happened to me and Ted, since the Black house-elfs."

"You have house-elfs, Potter?" Draco asked disbelievingly, wasn't Granger against them or something? 

Potter though just laughed and said, "Harry, and I'd be lost without my house-elfs."

"Master would be dead without us." the grim looking elf from before said, sounding deceptively fond and obviously proud where it suddenly stood next to Draco. He would have commented the rudeness of the elf to its master, but it was handing him a tray with soup, bread, juice and fruit. All in small portions but more than he'd seen since his imprisonment. Azkaban kept its prisoners alive with magic alone and he could barely keep himself from wolfing the food down, just in case it'd disappear like some horrible joke.

"Eat slowly or you'll get sick." was all Potter said, thankfully not looking at him.

 

Half through the soup and bread (probably the best food he'd ever had) the snake suddenly began hissing and it was only hunger that kept the food in when Potter- _Harry?_ answered in praseltongue. That was not _him_ sitting on the sofa, _not_ him. Po- _Harry's_ Praseltongue sounded softer, rounder that the jagged consonants _he'd_ use. 

"Ah, crap. Sorry." Harry sighed when he noticed Draco freeze mid bite, "I'll um-"

"No it's alright." Draco said, setting his bread next to the bowl and turning to look at the other man, "You sound different than...Voldemort."

Harry looked surprised, either by Draco's admission or the fact that he used _his_ name, but then smiled, suddenly seeming a bit more relaxed than before. "Oh, that's ... good. That's good to know. Either way, do you want me to fill you in on what's going to happen now or after you ate?"

"I can listen and eat at the same time." was all he answered before turning back to his food.

Draco carefully listened to the rules the Ministry had set up for him and Harry. He was only to leave the house or change location with Potter accompanying him and with his direct permission. He was not to perform magic, or to wield a wand. Any indication of aggression, law breaking or the like would land him instantly back in his cell. Potter was to report weekly for the first half year, monthly for the second half, and after one year of flawless behaviour a renegotiation of the restrictions may be considered.

"So I'm stuck with you and your kid for minimum of a year? That's it?" Draco asked, entirely surprised by the lenient rules, considering that he was the first, undeniably guilty Death Eater to legally get out of Azkaban _ever_.

Potter smirked, "You're stuck with me, Ted, Korn, Miss N, seven house-elves and four estates. Could be worse?"

Draco let the house-elf take away the empty tray while nibbling on the last grape. He was full, really, but he couldn’t just _not_ eat it after going without food for so long.  
"Much worse." he answered, "But how did you do it? Why and why _now_ and not months ago when mother- Mother! Can you get her out? You have to get her out!"

Harry sighed as he picked up the child that'd crawled to his feet, taking it into his arms as he slumped back into the leather sofa and began feeding the boy a bottle of milk Kreatcher handed over without request.  
It was an action that looked so natural, adult and _fatherly_ that it made Draco's thoughts stutter to a halt for a moment, and recalibrate. Because he realised this _wasn't_ the same Potter he remembered from Hogwarts.  
This _man_ was _nineteen_ just like Draco himself, and somehow he felt- he felt _young_ sitting next to Potter. Harry, who looked pale, and weary, had purple rings under his eyes and a crease between his eyebrows that wasn't there before, who had a number of new scars in his face alone that looked like it came from claws, so that the lightning bolt shape barely stood out anymore, and who wore washed out jeans with a fitted shirt that made Draco realise that Harry was almost as unhealthily thin as he himself.

"Sorry." Draco murmured, looking away embarrassed, "I don't mean to be ungrateful. I just-"

"It's ok." Harry interrupted, smiling at him tiredly, "I've already got a deal for her. It will...take a while though."

"What are the terms?"

"If your first year on probation ends without a hitch she will be released into my care under the same rules as you are now."

Draco's face fell. "An entire year?" he asked quietly, but Potter just nodded.

"Originally they wanted it to be three years but I managed to ... negotiate." 

He sighed and let himself fall back into the sofa lean, physically exhausted and mentally almost reeling (but finally active once again) , trying to fit this Harry with the Potter he knew, trying to grasp just how much he'd changed in the last nine months, that he could just sit next to _Harry Potter_.  
How messed up exactly that Harry Potter must think he was, compared to the fact that the man had a child and wife and pretty home, and not to panic every time he closed his eyes because he might be- no.

"When's your wife coming home?" Draco quickly asked to distract himself from the spiralling thoughts, trying not to flinch when Harry barked a laugh and woke up the napping child in his arms. Thankfully it didn't cry, just made a protesting noise and drifted off again.

"What makes you think that _I_ have a _wife_?" the man asked, the first truly amused grin on his face that Draco could remember.

"Well..." the blonde began, stopped and vaguely gestured to the sleeping infant, "I doubt you made him on your own? He looks like you, as much as a baby can look like you."

Harry smiled down at the child in his arms. "Ah, that's true. He's the son of Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin. They died in the battle at Hogwarts and Andromeda, his grandmother, could not overcome her grief to care for him. So, as his Godfather I took him in and adopted him into the house of Black, and-"

"Wait what? Black? But you're a Potter!"

For a moment Harry looked at him surprised and then slumped in defeat, "Oh great...I forgot."  
Draco though just raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.  
He may have been out of the loop for nine months, that didn't mean he had to stay out of it, even less so if it had directly to do with the person he'd have to stick to for the minimum of a _year_.

"Pippin?" Harry called for a surprisingly tall house-elf, "Please take Ted to bed and have Poppin find the Daily Prophet's Black-Potter article, and prepare a summary of social and political shifts from the past nine months for Mister Malfoy as quick as possible, and to stay at his disposition for reasonable requests."

The way he spoke surely and quietly, and how the house-elf complied without further questions and _didn't_ apparate with the baby, but carefully carried it upstairs told Draco a great deal about Harry's reliance on them. 

"The article is pretty accurate as long as you ignore the 'speculated' parts, and I think a summary will be more helpful than- than me." Harry said, yawning behind his hand as he stood up, "Because I'm knackered and going to bed. It's something around nine pm, by the way."

The blonde watched him walk towards the stairs, feeling a little lost if he was honest with himself, even if he didn't want to be honest with himself. "Shouldn't you make rules or something?" 

Harry stopped with one hand on the bannister and turned back around to him, looking slightly surprised.  
"Ah, yeah, sounds reasonable, I forgot. Let me think. Um.." He yawned again, "Ok, so the room you woke up in and everything in it is yours. If you want more or different clothes, stuff, whatever, call for Mox. Our bathroom is opposite your door. Remember not to go outside since I'm not with you, that includes the front and back garden, the balcony and roof, and I wouldn't risk leaning out the windows. Ted's room has a sign, is out of bounds and warded, and that's _not_ a personal insult or ...something. It's a precaution that's been there long before you, ok?"

Draco just nodded, even if the wards were there because of him he could understand Harry's reasons to put the child under extra protection, so he just asked,  
"Anything else?"

The man just rubbed his eyes for a moment, making Draco realise he wasn't wearing glasses, hadn't been wearing any the entire time, and hummed.  
"The attic and the basement belong to the house-elfs? Don’t know, I doubt I'll have to tell you not to break my stuff or mess with my paperwork and don't terrorize my elves or Korn- Oh. Stay away from Miss Norris, I swear she's psychotic. That's all I can think of though. So, good night!" With those words he vanished up the stairs, and when Draco called if he meant _the Miss Norris_ there was no answer.

Great, just great.  
A Minute later Poppin appeared and handed him an old Daily Prophet and some parchment. Feeling confused and still disturbingly adrift Draco began to read while the elf kept a steady stream of tea coming and excitedly answered any questions, until the blonde fell deep asleep stretched out on the sofa.

\- - - 

Draco got woken by an apparition's rather loud 'pang' and something violently falling against the back of the sofa he was lying on.  
It took him a moment to realise where he was ( _not Azkaban_ ), and what he was doing here (sleeping on a sofa with a green quilt), and for all intents and purposes it must be far too early as there was barely light coming through the windows, but the smell of smoke, sweat and blood instantly got him on his feet.

The cause of it was easily found in Harry (literally) _bloody_ Potter, who must've bumped into the back of the sofa and now lay sideways over one of the armchairs without worry for his furniture. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that his clothes were scorched and smothered in blood, letting it drip onto the upholstery and soak into the carpet.

"What the hell, Potter?!" was all Draco could squeeze out, heart hammering and trying to discern where all the blood came from. It certainly _looked_ more than one person should be able to loose! But the man opposite him just carelessly wiped his eyes with a sleeve (what only served to smear the blood around further) and blankly stare at him for a moment, before giving him a lazy smile that hopefully meant he was ok. If looking at ease when one is soaked in blood can be considered 'ok'.

"You're the only kind of Dragon I want to negotiate with, _ever_ again." is Potter's incredibly hoarse answer, sounding as if he'd just eaten a bucket of nails and washed it down with very potent Firewhisky, after winning a screaming match against a _banshee_. 

"You fought with a dragon? Does your hero complex never end?!"

"What? No. Negotiated. 'S my job. Translator. Praseltongue and all that, works on wyverns." Potter squirmed himself into a sitting position, furiously rubbing at his eyes some more as if he didn't notice that he was smearing more blood than he already had in his face, mumbling something along the line of "God, can you make tea?"

Right, praseltongue works on wyvern dragons. Only Potter, seriously.  
Draco let out a snort, "Keep calling me that and have a shower, then I just might make you some."  
He expected some sneered comment, possibly about whom he has to thank for being _able_ to make tea in the first place, or something the like. Maybe a couple of insults, anything. And for all that it might be really stupid to antagonise his 'keeper', he wanted to know how far he could push, how far his freedom reached.

What he didn't expect was a low, throaty laugh (accompanied by a wince, why was Potter so hoarse?) as the man got back on his feet and started climbing the stairs, where he called over his shoulder, "It's a deal, oh kindest of _gods_." and vanished into the upper levels of the house.

Draco was left standing in front of the sofa, one hand still clamped into the soft green quilt and staring at the gleaming dark liquid clinging to the armchairs leather, and the stark contrasting red footprints that Potter had left in his wake.  
His eyes fell back onto one of the moving pictures in articles and out of date Prophet editions, showing Potter wearing sharp, black and green, very expensive dress robes, next to a woman around her sixties wearing blue (Draco knew she was from society's upper circles but couldn't put a name to the face), as he kissed her knuckles and offered her his arm down the stairs in a gallant fashion, throwing a smile at the camera that was hard to recognise as practiced, not felt. Underneath he read _**"VIP guest Lord Harry Black-Potter escorting WOF-Founder Madame Forlis to her chariot after another successful WOF charity event."**_

Black-Potter.  
The article Poppin had brought him last night had been incredibly interesting and most of all very surprising.  
Turns out that Potter's godfather had been Sirius Black, who'd actually been innocent and arrested without trial after Voldemort's first fall. After his escape from Azkaban he and Harry had gotten into contact somehow and the following summer the man had secretly adopted his godson into the Black family without anyone's but Harry's knowledge, turning him into an actual pure-blooded Black with the 'blood cleaning' that every Black-adoption-ceremony requires.

There'd been more in the article, about whether or not he can still be considered as the Lord of the pureblood line Potter, or just Lord Black, plenty of 'speculations' about Sirius Black and other things that mostly seemed like complete humbug (no wonder Harry had told him to dismiss them), and of course far too much retelling of the war than Draco felt comfortable reading.

For all that the Gryffindor had loathed the limelight during their schooldays he seemed to have successfully integrated himself into the wizarding celebrities as far as at all possible in nine months, attending to gala's, charity events, doing interviews and the like. He was literally _the_ pureblood high-society at the moment that he'd so loathed before.  
In his head it all didn't make sense, Draco just couldn’t fit together the paranoid, skittish Potter from school, the confident, eloquent and _slytherin_ 'Black-Potter' celebrity from the media, the exhausted Harry who lies on the floor with a baby while speaking to a python, and the casually blood-soaked 'dragon-whisperer' who gets home at, Draco glanced at the clock in the kitchen, four thirty AM. 

It was like he was missing a major puzzle piece, cause for all intents and purposes Harry just had _never_ seemed like someone who'd enjoy the media's attention, or posh dinners with people he didn't give a fuck about. Just why-

"That event was a massive pain." Potter suddenly says next to him, making Draco jump. "All of them were. I'm just so fucking glad it's over."

The blond stared at him for a moment, absently registering that Potter's hair was wet and his grey t-shirt had a few darker, damp patches.  
"You-" he started, stopped himself and then just said rather deadpan, "No."

Potter though just turned away before Draco could catch sight of his face, vanishing the blood with a wave of his hand (again with the wandless magic!), answering coolly once he dropped back onto the armchair, "I did what I had to do. That is all."

Draco's eyes just flicked a couple more times from the articles to Potter, and decided that he needed tea.

Right, he'd promised Potter some tea.

**Author's Note:**

> What happened, in my vision, is that Harry made himself actively into the public figure he never seemed comfortable being/becoming in the books. He used his name, his fame, peoples respect and adoration to him, his outstanding abilities as a wizard, and wealth to created ties and favors with the popular, powerful and rich.   
> He became an open public figure who's actions and opinions are observed and supported by the high society, and made himself and his approval of their businesses, actions and lifestyles invaluable to them. Because who wouldn't use high end brooms that the Savior of the Wizarding world approves? Everyone who is someone has to have dined off the same fine cuisine that Harry Potter has spoken so highly of, right? Not to mention that he wears robes from [insert tailor name] so those have to be particularly excellent. Or that he admits to regularly have a drink with the Minister himself in [insert bar/cafe/something] . 
> 
> With everyone clawing for his attention and approval he'd have incredible social weight, especially as a large part of them, i can very well imagine, work for the Ministerium or support it in some fashion.   
> Once he had enough presence, influence, had enough people on his side with enough power, having them on the in- and outside of law and court, he used that stance, that social power to lever the laws of the Wizarding World into a position that he could get the people he himself owes, and does not believe to be rightfully imprisoned, out of Azkaban.   
> And now that the deal for Draco and Narcissa are made, on paper sealed and bound, he can finally stop that. Can finally stop having to smile for the cameras and shake everyone's hands. 
> 
> I'm sure he made some actual friends, did actually meet people whose presence he enjoys, but to me, the character of Harry Potter is not someone who enjoys the full glare of the spotlight, but would rather skirt along it's edges, just enough not to be forgotten, just enough that he could step back into it should it be required, should it once again happen that everything rests on his shoulders, cause it's not like he's ever known differently. He seems like someone who would hold strings in a loose grip, letting them move all on their own but never too far away as that he could not pull them back into his reach should the need arise.


End file.
